


In Need

by kristen999



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, some mush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristen999/pseuds/kristen999
Summary: Life happens in split seconds.





	In Need

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you to Gaelicspirit for her wonderful beta even while away on business.  
> I had a deep itch, this fixed it. Thanks to Iby and sapphirescribe for the inspiration.

***  
The crash took forever. 

Adrenaline pumped through Steve’s system, but there was no hope. He couldn’t do anything as the Camaro skimmed along the surface of the water. Breaking didn’t help; it was like falling off a cliff, knowing no effort could prevent the chain of events. 

The telephone pole seemed to be rushing toward the car—

Steve opened his mouth to shout a warning to the kids, but the Camaro collided with the pole, and inertial followed. The noise of crunching metal and breaking glass was deafening. His body flung back into the seat and then forward, his face impacted the air bag, the side of his head smacking something hard.

For a split second all Steve could hear was the rush of blood in his ears and the sound of his own rapid breathing. The seatbelt tugged on Steve’s skin as the air bag deflated. The sound of rain pelted the roof of the Camaro.

_The kids._

“Nahele! Charlie!”

His eyes shifted around. Steve noticed movement from the passenger side seat; Nahele leaned forward, groaning. Steve heard Charlie crying. 

Spots blurred the corners of his vision and a buzzing noise filled inside his ears, making his head feel as though it was inside static.

_Where were they?_

“What happened?” Nahele asked. 

“What?” Steve gasped. A copper taste pooled over his tongue. 

Steve turned toward Nahele and pain sliced clean and bright through his skull. He grabbed his pounding head.

“Uncle Steve,” Charlie sobbed from his car seat.

“Charlie?” Steve wheezed.

His head throbbed with each heartbeat, but he tried craning his neck to look over at Charlie. “Are you okay buddy?”

The movement made the pain flare, a slow penetrating throb that emanated from the front of his skull, turning his vision white.

Nahele reached over and touched his arm. “Steve?” 

“What?” He could feel how thin his voice sounded.

 _God_ , he hurt, but he had responsibilities. His panic rose hearing sirens in the distance.

“The ambulance is coming,” Nahele said. His voice sounded far away, calm.

Steve was anything but calm; he needed to get the children safe. Where was his cell phone?

“Your phone is inside your pants pocket, but you don’t need it,” Nahele said. This time his voice held a tight edge of worry.

Steve didn’t remember saying anything out loud.

The rain pounded all around him. Steve tried moving his legs but they wouldn’t budge; his body didn’t feel right. What the hell?

“Nahele? Charlie?”

“We’re right here,” Nahele’s voice came from Steve’s side. “I see someone coming toward us.”

“I’ve called 911,” a woman said, breathless. “They’re on their way. Is everyone all right?”

“I think I broke my arm,” Nahele spoke. “I can’t reach Charlie, but I think he’s okay.”

“And what about your dad? Sir? Are you okay? Help’s on the way, just hold still.”

Steve tried to look over at Nahele, to see his arm, but once he realized the children were not badly injured, it felt like a gear down-shifted in his mind and his brain went off-line.

***

Steve woke up and couldn’t turn his head left or right. The neck collar made him feel paralyzed; everything was too bright and too loud.

“Commander McGarrett, my name is Amanda; I’m a nurse here at Tripler. You were in a car accident. Do you understand me?”

His head felt like it was filled with swooshing water and he closed his eyes against the horrible light stabbing through his eye.

***

The inside of his cranium still felt heavy, the water replaced with concrete. Things didn’t sound right; a high pitched ringing assaulted his ears, the sharpness increasing if he moved his head too fast. 

_It’ll go away in time,_ his doc had said.

His thoughts were slow; Steve grimaced, struggling to follow conversations.

“Do you understand these aftercare instructions, Commander?” his doctor asked, stuffing several pamphlets inside a Ziploc bag along with two prescriptions. Steve stared at the man’s wrinkled face, trying to recall his name.

 _“I_ understand them,” Danny said, grabbing all of Steve’s stuff. 

Doctor What’s His Name studied Danny like maybe he was reconsidering discharging Steve from the hospital. “Commander McGarrett has a moderate grade concussion, which is serious, but it’s his third one in the last five years. His recovery is going to take more time than usual.”

“I heard everything you said. Nothing but bed rest for the next few days.” Danny held up the care-instructions for added emphasis. “I even memorized all the precautions.”

Steve grabbed the crutches leaning on his bed and made his way toward the wheelchair, his injured knee wrapped tightly with an ace bandage. “I’ll wait here until you guys are done.”

Danny shot him a look of surprise, his lips thinning into a frown. Steve delegated everything to Danny with his actions, wanting nothing more than to get everything over with. After a night in the hospital, he was done.

Danny finished with the doctor with a flourish of efficiency, expediting the whole process and the tedious trip to the car.

***

It was a testament to how chaotic his brain was that Steve didn’t notice which direction Danny was driving. He was too busy trying not to throw-up from the combination of being inside the car and the weird hourglass effect of the sun reflecting off the front windshield. He closed his eyes, despite wearing sunglasses.

“Babe, we’re here.”

Steve stared at the front of the house, confused. “This isn’t my home.”

“No, because your bedroom is on the second floor and if you tried to navigate stairs anytime soon, you’re going to crack-open that fat head of yours. Again.”

Before Steve could argue, Danny had exited his driver-side door and opened-up the passenger-side one, and was standing and waiting to help. Steve’s crutches were in the backseat and he couldn’t muster the energy to grab them. Danny’s shoulder was strong and warm and Steve instinctively leaned his weight against it. Danny wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist, anchoring him. 

“Come on, let me do this,” Danny whispered.

The warmth in Danny’s voice turned the rest of Steve’s muscles to jelly and he surrendered himself to Danny’s tenderness as he limped inside.

***

Steve stretched out on Danny’s sofa, a pillow stuffed under his bad leg; he forgot where he put his sunglasses.

“Here,” Danny said, coming out of the kitchen, clutching an icepack. Wrapping it up in a towel, he knelt down and he rested it on Steve’s sore knee. The cold seeped into his skin, quieting the angry nerves. Danny smiled down at him, sad and tender. “I’ll re-heat some lunch so you can take your pain pills.”

But Steve closed his eyes against a wave of guilt pressing into him, images of cracks in the car windows, Charlie hiccupping in the backseat where Steve couldn’t reach. Steve threw an arm over his eyes, wishing for complete and total darkness.

“It’s not gourmet, but I’ve re-heated some potato-leek soup. Easy on the stomach and very filling”

“I’m not hungry,” Steve mumbled his stomach growling its betrayal.

Setting the bowl on the coffee table in front of him, Danny sat on the loveseat opposite of where Steve lay. “I would beg to differ, my friend.”

He _was_ hungry, but felt like he was bobbing up and down in dinghy, the idea of moving the least appealing thing ever.

One of the cushions dipped from where Danny sat on the edge. “You can’t take your meds on an empty stomach.”

Steve scowled at him. “You’re not feeding me.” Because _no._

“Lucky for your delicate sensibilities, Grace loves breakfast in bed, so this comes in handy.” Danny placed a tray table with small folding legs over Steve’s lap, placing the bowl of soup and spoon within easy reach. “Now, you don’t have to screw-up your equilibrium any more than it is now.”

Steve squeezed his eyes closed against the wave of shame washing over him. The only thing he was grateful for was the fact Grace hadn’t been in the car with him during the accident. Pushing himself up with his hands, Steve moved further into a sitting position, the room cresting over a wave. 

“You just lost what little color was left in your face.” 

Danny’s hand twitched in need, but he didn’t hold the bowl for Steve, for which Steve was forever grateful. The spoon only shook for a moment in his hand before he forced the tremble away to eat.

“You’re being an idiot,” Danny mumbled. But Steve ignored him.

***

Steve had been shot and stabbed, he’d engaged in brutal hand-to-hand fights, but car-crashes were a different animal. He was sore from head to toe; it hurt to breathe from where his chest impacted the steering wheel, even with the airbag. His immobility was beyond frustrating. 

After hobbling into the bathroom, he leaned his crutches against the sink and began fumbling with the buttons to his shirt, revealing the ugly bruising around his ribcage. 

_“These guys are lucky, it could have been a lot worse,”_ the uni at the scene had said to one of the EMTs. 

A soft knock on the door startled him. “You okay in there?” Danny called out.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“Did you listen to what the doctor said? No showers for a few days,” Danny said, barging in. He looked around in confusion. “Do you realize you’re standing here in the dark?”

Steve blinked at his reflection in the mirror. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, he says.” But Danny didn’t switch on the light. Instead, he pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the water, testing the temperature with his forearm before deeming it acceptable. “I’ll be right back.”

Leaning his hands on the counter seemed to be the best course of action because Steve didn’t quite follow what was going on. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, only to hear his name frantically repeated.

“Steven, come on, snap out of it.”

Steve opened his eyes to a frazzled looking Danny, his face so close to Steve’s that he could smell detergent from his shirt. “What?”

“Jesus, Steve, you’re so out of it. Come on, I say we ditch the bath idea in lieu of lying down in bed.”

Bath? 

Steve glanced over at the tub filled with water and the warm glow of several candles. Steve would have found the effect and care sweet if it didn’t include minutes of lost time.

“I don’t like the way these pills are making me feel,” Steve said.

“You bruised that tiny brain of yours. Believe me, it’s not the meds. Now, come here.”

It was like walking through fog, his limbs and muscles on autopilot. By the time he realized Danny had helped removed his shirt and sweatpants, Steve’s head was already relaxing against the softness of the most amazing pillow.

The noise of fabric _swooshing_ drew his attention toward the side of the room where Danny closed the last curtain, engulfing the entire bedroom in darkness. The ice picks behind Steve’s eyes started to fade into a dull throb, he hadn’t even realized how much it hurt until the pain began to fade.

“Danny?” Steve’s voice sounded tiny to his own ears.

“Coming,” Danny whispered. Steve felt the warmth of Danny’s body as he lay on his side next to Steve. “I’m here.”

Steve stared up at the ceiling tiles, too drained to move from where he lay on his back. Danny pulled the sheet up to Steve’s chest, curling closer, resting his head and arm gently over the edge of Steve’s shoulder. 

When Steve closed his eyes, he heard the phantom sound of brakes grinding, the smell of burned rubber and rain, his body tensing along with it.

“Go to sleep, Steve,” Danny whispered, gently rubbing his fingers over the gooseflesh of Steve’s arm. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

***

For the next day and half all Steve did was doze and he was sick of it; today he was going outside to feel the sunshine on his face. 

But everything still felt like it was moving in slow-motion. Putting one foot in front of the other was strange; if he didn’t trace the edge of the hallway wall with his fingers, then he couldn’t walk in a straight line.

“Uncle Steve!”

By the time Steve located the source of the excited yell, Charlie’s had arms wrapped around Steve’s legs.

“Hold on, don’t do that Charlie; gravity isn’t Uncle Steve’s friend right now.”

“What’s grafvitee, Danno?”

“It’s a law of physics your Uncle Steve tries to defy on a regular basis.”

Danny scooped up his son and held him to his chest, Charlie wiggling and squirming. “Put me down.”

“I will if you behave. Why you don’t go back to your coloring books?”

Steve watched Charlie practically bounce out of Danny’s arms and toward a table and a child’s chair to begin drawing.

“You on planet Earth today, Steven? Or do I need to launch a probe to find where your head is at?”

“Charlie’s okay,” Steve said, but all he could hear was the sound of the little boy crying.

“He’s fine. I told you that in the hospital and again last night. The car seat protected him during the crash.” Danny stood next to Steve, his shoulders relaxed in a faded blue t-shirt. The lines in his face wrinkled when he gave him a wan smile. “Rachel wanted to spend time with him the last couple of days and I felt you could use the quiet.”

Licking dry lips, Steve watched Charlie scribble hard enough to break the crayon. “I couldn’t reach him.”

“That’s because your legs were pinned by the dash and steering column. It’s how you banged-up your knee. Speaking of…,” Danny looked around where Steve stood. “Where are your crutches?”

Steve gave Danny a befuddled expression before he looked down at the layers of ace bandages around his the injured joint. “Um, I forgot.”

“Guess we know the pain meds work if you didn’t feel moving around.” Danny rested a hand on Steve’s bicep and nudged him toward the living room. “You are a handful, this way to the nice sofa.”

“Mr. Williams, where do you keep the mustard?” Nahele walked out of the kitchen, his arm resting in a blue sling. When he saw Steve, his face lit-up. “Howzit brah? You feeling better?”

Steve looked from Nahele to Danny in confusion and Danny shook his head. “He wanted to see how you were doing, I thought it’d be nice if he came over for lunch.

“I’m good,” Steve said, staring, his eye lingering on Nahele’s cast.

“Cool. You want a puka dog?”

It took forever for Steve to settle against the cushions of the sofa. “No, thanks.”

Nahele looked at Steve like it was his loss before he turned toward Danny. “I checked all the cupboards and couldn’t find a bottle.”

“It’s in the refrigerator,” Danny told him.

Nahele arched his eyebrows in disbelief. “You keep it in the fridge?”

“That is the proper storage of a condiment once it’s open.” Nahele rolled his eyes and Danny waved a finger at him. “Don’t mock the rules of my kitchen. And Nahele, Mr. Williams is my father. It’s Danny.”

Turning to face where Steve sat on the sofa, Danny shook his head. “After all this time, you’d think he’d figure out that out by now.”

But Steve didn’t pay him much attention as Nahele returned to the living room with a puka dog piled with pineapple and relish. Sitting on the love seat, he ate awkwardly with his new cast, gobs of chili and pineapple bits dropping onto the napkin on his lap from every bite. The young man could have died a few days ago and the idea crushed Steve.

Nahele looked up from where he ate and mumbled between bites. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“Yeah, you need a bib.” Danny snorted, getting up and walking toward the kitchen table. “Lucky for you, I’m used to having children in my house.”

Laughing, Nahele stared at mess in his lap, then over at Steve, his excitement disappearing into a frown. “Steve?”

Steve blinked when he heard his name. “Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?” 

“What? No. I’m…I…,” Steve grimaced, his thought-process muddled. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You got hurt.” Steve vowed he’d always protect his ohana, promised Nahele he’d always look after him.

Nahele glanced at his arm and shrugged. “It’s alright.”

“You won’t be able to finish baseball season.”

“We lost in the playoffs two weeks ago.” Nahele fidgeted in his seat. “You, um, were there.”

Steve squinted at him, puzzled.

Danny came over and dropped a wet rag into the young man’s lap. “You got mustard on your chin.” He looked from Nahele to Steve. “Did I miss something?”

“He’s still actin’ kind of odd,” Nahele whispered to Danny, but it was a small room and Steve heard every booming word.

“Well, that’s nothing new.” But Danny sat next to Steve, working his jaw. “You’re looking paler than my Aunt Helga’s bed sheets. Maybe it’s time for another nap.”

But Steve didn’t want to sleep and he didn’t want to move, he wanted everything to stop feeling like he was walking through a dream, all his thoughts a jumbled set of Scramble pieces.

He felt a strong arm around his back, guiding him until his head was comfy in Danny’s lap. Danny ran his fingers through Steve’s hair, gently kneading the pressure points in Steve’s skull. 

“It’s okay, babe. You’re going to feel out of sorts for a few more days, but it’ll go away, I promise.”

“You should be angry…I crashed into a telephone pole, if I had been going slower… I could have avoided it.” 

Danny was always telling Steve to slow down.

“Brah, some SUV veered into our lane from the other direction,” Nahele’s voice drifted above Steve’s head. “You swerved out of the way to avoid hitting it head-on.”

“What?” Steve asked.

Danny sighed, his fingers rubbing at the knots in Steve’s neck. “Doofus. You keep forgetting.” His fingers trailed back into Steve’s hair, sending a pleasant tingling through his scalp into Steve’s neck and shoulders. 

“The accident was not your fault. If it wasn’t for your reflexes, it would have been a lot worse.” Steve could feel the shudder that went through Danny’s body. “You saved them, Steven.”

_“These guys are lucky….”_

Steve started to relax under Danny’s ministrations, the tension radiating inside his aching head easing. “I don’t… remember that,” he mumbled.

“Because you brain is bit scrambled right now. But it’s okay; I still love you.”

“I love you too, Uncle Steve.”

Steve smiled at Charlie’s voice floating above him.

“And because you’re eyes are closed and I’m sending you into a sublime dreamland, Nahele’s fond expression means he loves you too, but he’s at that age where saying stuff like that out loud isn’t cool.”

Nahele mumbled something intelligible in the background, but Steve knew what he meant, and he sank deeper into a pleasant fog of no pain. His last thoughts before Danny started gentle circles at Steve’s temples, was that his ohana was safe, and they were his.

***  
-fini

**Concussions are tricky things and ever trickier to write. I've have had one, so I wanted to see if I could do it justice. 


End file.
